


Lies (they told me)

by Wisetypewriter



Series: little misunderstandings [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Bruce cannot deal with Jason dying, Bruce is losing his mind, Bruce was a good dad, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Other people try to help but make it worse, Suicidal Thoughts, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 18:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisetypewriter/pseuds/Wisetypewriter
Summary: Bruce has heard that line hundreds of times, mostly in his own thoughts, when he sets his eyes on the clown. Clark was the one to tell him first.He would have done it. He's known for years that those words were the only thing that kept his one rule intact.Unfortunately, they are a lie.





	Lies (they told me)

Bruce is surrounded by liars. It's a distant kind of realization. He'd always known that he was, one did not become a businessman, grow up as part of the one percent without knowing that lies are as air for this crowd.

He simply had thought friends and family would be better than that.

***

Bruce staggers through the fields of sand, haggard, suffocated by the weight of his suit – the uselessness of _Batman_ (a symbol of fear, that no one fears anymore, least of all _him_ [a challenge, that's what he's become to them]) --, slowed by the grief that's cleaved his soul in half.

He catches up, clenches his fingers around the purple waistcoat and pulls and slams _him_ into a wall. It hurts, he makes certain it does.

"Did you like my gift, Batsy?" is asked with a perverted glint in the Joker's eyes.

First, he takes care of the knees and the elbows. The Joker can't get away this time. The clown's not bothered in the least. The Joker laughs. It's high, hysterical, like sandpaper in the ears. It's the sound that send every Gothamite running for their lives. Any moment of joy can burn into ashes at the sound of the Joker's laugh.

Is that the last thing his son heard?

_No, it might have been the blast of the explosion, or the rubble falling to crush him, maybe even the silence of the desert as he desperately tried to breath._

He can't feel his knuckles anymore. But he's still moving.

Punching. Burying his fists into the flesh of a monster that should have been put down **years** ago. Silencing the cackling, ignoring the pleased cries ("Do it!","I always knew you had it in you!")

He shouldn't have had to bury his son.

His fist is stopped mere inches from Joker's face. _That_ bothers the clown. Turns his grin into a frown. Bruce is struggling against the grip. It's futile, he realizes the moment he sees the color (blue, red, the American way). But God, that monster lived too long already.

"Jason wouldn't want you to become a murderer," Superman - No, _Clark_ says. His best friend.

He doesn't think on the moment that Jason had all of three conversations with Clark outside his costume (Bruce's never been the social sort, not with a city such as Gotham under his watch). Diana echoes that later, for all she understands a harsher brand of justice, she looks at him with pities in her eyes and compassion wide as the ocean. _"_ _You don't have it in you to be a killer. Y_ _ou_ _couldn't_ _live with yourself afterward_ _._ _"_

He can't live with himself anyway. But maybe this helps Gotham a little longer.

(He has another son, who's lost to him as well, to growing up. He can't bear to think Jason would have left him like that too, one day. But he would give anything to make that the reality instead of this one. Better a son that hates him than one that loved him and died for it.)

***

Bruce learns to repeat the lie to himself.

Every time he sees hints of green hair or blood red smile, the words return like a mantra.

Joker's still chuckling, even with ribs broken and blood dripping over his face. Pain never mattered to that monster. Failure was an amusing setback. Every time Batman defeats him, Joker finds a way to return, more twisted, more depraved than before. Some night in the cave, he pulls out the record, the list of names, and reads, over and over. Alfred will always beckon him to bed, to turn away from the hundreds. The graveyards.

"You cannot be expected to carry on the world on your shoulders, sir."

It's the burden he chose, though. Gotham.

"You should get some rest. Bruce Wayne hasn't made an appearance at his company in weeks now."

They know he's grieving. Parents know he'll never stop, others will expect him to get over it. Adopt another one. Replace the defective model. It's three lawsuits on his desk and three of the most satisfying response he's ever giving to the press.

Everybody knows what happened and nobody knows what happened. Every bit of sympathy feels like glass in his throat. He doesn't deserve any of it. He's as good as gotten his boy killed. He's leaving his murderer run free to murder other children. Gordon's eying him weirdly now.

Is more hesitant to mention it when the Joker's suspected of anything.

"He was a good kid," is said one night, between the smoke of a cigarette and the glow of the signal. "I'm sorry."

Gordon doesn't lie. He knows Batman won't kill. He trusts that. Maybe he has that mantra in his head too. He's an honest cop in Gotham. He's got to have one.

_"Jason wouldn't want you to become a murderer."_

He never quite believes it.

_"Did he fall, Robin, or was he pushed?"_

His boy had looked defiant all of three seconds before looking away and mumbling about 'spooked him' and 'guess he fell'.

But it was one time. He never found out what was the truth, just what his dead boy told him. It's never clear to him which would be more painful. His boy, a murderer, or himself, unable to tell the difference? Even if-

_Even if_ , Robin's voice is more insistent, determined like all of them are, it would have been one time. A man who would have gotten away with it. Who _would_ do it again the moment he was back in his home country. Someone that could escape justice and hurt people as he pleased. Again. Again.

If Joker enters Arkham in a full body cast, then it's truly lucky. Gotham still has her knight after all.

***

His name is Timothy Jackson Drake. His next door neighbor.

Clever, ruthlessly intelligent in a way he recognizes in himself. A drive to protect a city as broken as Gotham. That boy delivered himself to his doorstep.

He wants to cry. He closes the door in Timothy's face.

That boy can't become his son.

Bruce... _Batman_ destroys every child he touches.

(He sees the blankness on Tim's face when the memories overwhelm him and he calls him Jason.)

(He sees the yearning, sometimes, after Dick came around and acted like a brother the way he _should have_ with Jason. Timothy Drake is cripplingly lonely. Neglected. Willing to put himself in harm's way to do what's right.)

(Alfred pointedly looks his way, carrying reprimand and uncharacteristic pleading.)

"Batman needs a Robin."

Since when has he become unable to restrain himself without a child around him? Since when has he become so dangerous that he can only choose to endanger one innocent instead of many?

The least he can do is keep Tim at arms' length. He doesn't deserve a father as unworthy as Bruce Wayne.

***

He thought he understood what Red Hood wanted with him. The only logical conclusion. Repayment for Batman's greatest failure. How could he not want to hurt him for bringing him into this war? How could he not want Bruce dead when he, himself, stares at the pictures on his nightstand every morning and-?

"Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me-"

If he had been a less stoic man ( _"Don't call your emotional constipation 'stoic', Dad. You're not hip."_ ), he would have chuckled at that lie. Not saving Jason was unforgivable. He cannot be forgiven for that.

"- but why on Earth is _HE_ still alive?!"

Bruce's head swim. His ears ring. By some sort of divine intervention, he remains standing despite the dizziness that hits him like a missile. Sounds become muffled, indistinct past the thought that's echoing through his skull.

Jason _did_ want him to become a murderer. To kill the Joker. To end gotham's nightmare.

Why hadn't Bruce? He'd known Jason. Known about the vengeful streak a miles long. Street kids learned to keep scores young. It wasn't a lesson you unlearned. But somehow, that was lost to death. Everything his son had been, lost to vague recollections. To impressions that faded with every passing day. He's screamed at Tim words that make him ashamed. That make him beg Jason's memories for forgiveness. He couldn't lose another son to carelessness – his own, always his to bear.

It was the thing to say, when someone grieved. Your loved ones wouldn't want you to – stop smiling – waste away – be stuck on their death – avenge them. It's cold comfort. A way to keep a man sated in his mourning. Bruce's never stopped knowing what he should have done all along, but maybe he can be forgiven, if, _if only_ he followed what Jason would have wanted for him.

A lie.

They lied. _THEY_ _LIED_! Tried to make him feel better. Tried to turn him away from what any parent would do to their child's killer. " _That's not Batman_ ," they'd said. _But what about Bruce Wayne? What about Jason's father?!_

Now he's lost his boy, twice over. A miracle he can't enjoy. A nightmare more terrible than the worst Crane had ever managed to make him suffer.

Jason's still talking, still snarling at him, denouncing him and his antiquated sense of morality. Jason's here, pointing a gun at him (like the little eight year old in that alley). Jason's _older_. Has lived years away from him. He wished...

_Better a son that hates him than one that loved him and died._

He hadn't thought he would get both.

Jason hates him. Thinks Bruce didn't love him enough to turn his death into something meaningful. Jason believes that Bruce forgot him and moved on.

His lips quirked up.

He can't help it. He's just realized how funny this is. It was so simple all along. A lie only helps till it's unveiled for the world to see.

He had known, all along. The only thought that kept him alive for years now, a complete fabrication to ease his pain. And in doing so, he hurt his son beyond repair. By not giving in to his heart's desire, by forgetting his son in favor of a lie, he's lost him.

He's laughing. Hard. It brings him to his knees. It robs him of his breath, makes his lungs burn. He can't stop and the tears that had dried up are falling once more.

"Bruce, the fuck-?" Jason's voice, softly, with the edge of panic. "Bruce? _Dad_?"

It's barely strong enough to be heard. The high-pitched cackling, on the other hand, rings clear as day. "Oh, Junior, you _did it_! Congratulations! Of all the monsters in this crackwhore of a town, _you're_ the one that did it! You broke the bat!"

No, thinks Bruce, choking, the lie broke me.

**Author's Note:**

> You ever wonder about those phrases people tell you about what your dead loved ones would think or say when you're grieving. People telling Bruce that Jason wouldn't him to be a murderer is always a tragic one to me. They got it so, so wrong. Regardless of the consequences that would have resulted from that line being crossed, Jason might have returned to Bruce right away instead of stewing in his rage...


End file.
